Changes
by Kakera
Summary: 50 years after Abel set out to destroy Cain, what has become of the Empire? Astharoshe has matured. Old friends and enemies appear again. Everything is the same, yet different, and unseen changes begin to show their colors. AstAbel friendship. Spoilers


Disclaimer: Trinity Blood belongs to the amazing Sunao Yoshida (R.I.P)

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**Prologue: Decay**

Night in the New Human Empire. The spectacular lights of the capital, Byzantium, flickered in the distance. Soft white light filtered through large wrought-iron windows, stained the color of stars. Oak doors creaking with age swung open, and with the flick of a switch the familiar hall was flooded with light.

_Everything was the same, yet so much had changed._

Astharoshe Asran, Duchess of Kiev and Viscountess of Odessa, stood with her painted lips slightly parted. She faltered, the words: "I'm home" nearly slipping yet again. She silently reprimanded herself, knowing though denying that grandpa has been dead for ten years, bearing the fact that she was all alone in the iron and stone prison of her mansion. The car that had escorted her back from the palace of jade gave a sudden purr and slipped away, jarring her from her reverie in the doorway.

Asta walked gingerly over to the closet that was mere steps from the front doors. She detested the violet velvet dress that was now her attire for the court. The outfit was no less ornate than her last one, and bore a great resemblance to a dress she once wore to a cocktail party. However, it swept the floor as she walked, and the large sleeves hindered her from moving her arms freely. The dress was well tailored, yet Astharoshe felt like she was wearing a strait jacket every time she donned the softly shimmering garment.

It was psychological. Now that Asta was head of the secret council, the Empire's eyes were always focused on her. The dress that represented her status also served as a constant reminder of the scrutiny she endured in her position. She knew all this and accepted it grudgingly. The duchess of Kiev was not such a foolish woman to be blind to her own heart. She happily stripped of the heavy dress and took a deep breath, relishing the way the air felt in her suffocated lungs. The simple vest and short underskirt were far more suited to her taste.

Kicking her heels off into a box inside the closet, Asta ascended the staircase impatiently and swished into a large dressing room with organized shelves and drawers. She had learned to clean up after herself and put away her belongings properly- things a normal Terran would learn by the age of five. In fact, the duchess had learned a great deal about the duties of a servant. Looking into the myriad of mirrors that surrounded her, she gingerly untangled a hairpiece from her white locks- the one that the Duchess of Moldova, Mirka Fortuna, had worn to the imperial courts until her grandson disappeared fifty years ago. The former head of the secret council had resigned then, retreating to her mansion where she allowed only baybars to visit her once a month. The empress was welcome at any time, of course.

With a soft "ouch", Asta brushed out her hair, which had become a mess where the hairpiece had rested. In these fifty years, her majesty had become even more distant, although the empress had never been very close to "her darling children", since as long as anyone could remember. Asta always thought she was closer to the mother of Methuselah than most of the nobility, and she was- the empress was simply a very private person. Shutting the lights and walking out to the hall, Asta glanced a furry carpet that used to be the bed of her pet, Venus, who had passed on around the same time Ion disappeared.

Thinking of the parliament meeting she attended today, she realized that in recent years, even her connections with the Vatican had faded into nothing. The one constant in her life was her position, which had never been questioned since she was chosen. There had been unavoidable problems with the contra mundi, but those incidents were always solved efficiently and with a bit of overkill, as was her style. Astharoshe Asran had come to be known as the crimson fang, with respect to the stark red streak in her white hair, which she now kept trimmed just past her shoulders.

In a slightly better mood now, Asta hummed as she opened the doors to the balcony attached to her room. Looking out, she laughed a little as she saw the poor state of the garden, which could not stand time's decay. Not to be redundant, but really, it was maintained until grandpa passed on. Now, the roses have withered into a corner, the hedges made a wild maze, and the chrysanthemum… they had taken over. Asta admired the colorful jungle for a bit, and felt her eyelids becoming heavy. It had been a long day, with several cases of murder and political negotiations with the prince of Valencia. Her Methuselah hearing picked up the fluttering of a monarch's wings as it flew, and the bees' buzzing blended together into a hypnotizing wave of white noise.

A crash.

Asta nearly hit her chin on the stone railing as her arm slipped in surprise. She was suddenly wide-awake, looking around to pinpoint the source of the disturbance. She jumped down to the garden and felt a jolt of déjà vu as she peered around an overgrown hedge.

"H-Hi Asta-san," a sleep-eyed priest laughed nervously as he tried to untangle himself from the vines on the ground, "how have you been?" A blonde-haired Methuselah smacked his forehead with his palm as he watched on, gaping.

"Tovarăş," Asta smiled, this time around with genuine humor in her eyes.

_So much had changed, yet everything remained the same._

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A/N: Eek. My first fanfic in five years…! I've been meaning to write a Trinity Blood fic for a while now, since it's my obsession. This one's planned to be short and bittersweet. There will be BIG spoilers, mostly out of Canon untold stories. I've always wanted to fill some of that gap between the events set in stone. Combine that with the fact that I'll be cosplaying Astharoshe and… well, the story practically wrote itself (No, I'm not wearing my cosplay while I'm writing this) Haha.

Reviews would be nice. It's almost like I'm entering the world of fanfiction anew, seeing as I was 11 when I wrote my last one. D'oh.


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